Lightning Swords of Death, The Extra...

Hailing from the barren, frigid regions of… what the fuck?… Los Angeles!? Really?… Uh… so, these dudes are from the land of spray-on tans, fast women and celebrity stalkers. What the hell are they doing playing violent as hell, barbaric black metal?

To tell you the truth I don’t care, just as long as they keep doing it. Lightning Swords of Death lay waste to the shiny people of California (and the rest of the world for that matter) with cold, buzzing guitars and a bestial low-end full of thick bass and maniacal drumming. There’s nothing fancy behind the band’s sophomore album, The Extra Dimensional Void, except maybe a more polished production, but don’t let that lead you astray. This is a beast of an album, with an excellent vocal delivery from Autarch, rabid rhythms and a suffocating atmosphere.

The Extra Dimensional Wound
The title track gets us started off into our journey with six plus minutes of mid-tempo black metal that’s got a thick, bass heavy feel (which I totally love) and unrelenting riffing. The band delivers the goods with ferocity as the vocals run the gamut of guttural growls, mid-range barks and higher-end shrieks. There are some nicely timed shifts in rhythm throughout the song that keeps it from becoming too lengthy or overbearing. In fact, this song goes by pretty damned quickly.

Nihilistic Stench
“Nihilistic Stench” is a blasting and fiercely delivered three and a half minutes of scathing black metal. The vocals are as raw and evil as they sound on the album while a thick low-end delivers rumbling bass and thundering drums. Amongst the buzzing guitars and dense rhythms there’s a decent groove flowing that will have you head banging along quickly enough. This very well could be my favorite track on the album.

Invoke the Desolate One
This next song starts off with a bit of a staggered opening before descending into unholy desolation and blackness with a huge scream and pile-driving drums. The riffs settle down enough for a nice groove to emerge as the vocals really kick in. I like the more chaotic, random feel to this song as it progresses. The vocals are outstanding on this song.

Zwartgallig
This two minute long ambient noise/instrumental helps you catch your breath briefly before jumping head first back into the blackness.

Damnation Pentastrike
I love the opening to this song as big riffs join rumbling bass and massive drums for about 30 seconds before settling into a crushing groove as the vocals arrive. There’ s no one thing that makes this song truly memorable, but I’ll be damned if it’s not catchy as hell. This mid-tempo song moves along nicely.

Venter of the Black Beast
“Venter of the Black Beast” is a slow moving, creeping song with burly bass and discordant guitar tones working together to crack what little left of your sanity you may control. This is a vile and bleak track that’s disturbingly dark and suffocating. It’s a good thing it’s not too lengthy (5:54), or there’d be patches of mass suicides across the land. Then again, looking at the news now, this might not be such a bad thing. Man, the vocals on this song are sick.

Vorticating into Scars
Distant guitars quickly fade in as rabid drums and vicious, raspy screams open up this next song with a fury unlike anything else on the album (although it may just seem that away after the plodding “Venter of the Black Beast). At any rate, this sub four minute long song is scathing and served at a blistering pace with only the slightest slow down here and there to break up the attack a bit.

Paths to Chaos
“Paths to Chaos” wraps up the album in epic fashion. It starts off slowly as the song builds dramatically over the first 40 seconds before erupting into chugging riffs and thick rhythms. There are plenty of ebbs and swells of the tempo throughout this lengthy track to keep you from getting bored 3 Autarch’s vocals certainly don’t hurt either. There’s a solid two minute filled with nothing but ambient noise before a nice combination of bass, guitar and drums come in that ultimately lead to the catchiest and most memorable riff on the song. Things quickly erupt into violent drumming and tortured screams while that riff maintains its course for the next minute or so. The final couple of minutes are filled with more ambient noise to end out the album.

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Additional Notes:
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